


Denver

by Ladycat



Series: In The Middle [3]
Category: Angel: the Series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Africa, Angst, Dark, Multi, Post-Chosen, Post: s05e22 Not Fade Away
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-11
Updated: 2014-02-11
Packaged: 2018-01-12 00:34:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1179806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladycat/pseuds/Ladycat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Connor’s still not sure how he ended up here. He knows that he showed up at the tale end of a battle epic enough to make Robert Jordan’s books look simplistic, fought and then ... then he’s not sure.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Denver

Connor’s still not sure how he ended up here. He knows that he showed up at the tale end of a battle epic enough to make Robert Jordan’s books look simplistic, fought and then ... then he’s not sure. His memory is funny, sometimes, different events superimposed over each other as he tries to remember what it was like when he was five, or ten, or thirteen. His first kiss: was it with a fumbling, messy thing with Katy, sent into a closet on a dare? Or was it a woman, older and lush and so beautiful that he can’t even think of her name without fighting the rise of tears. Sometimes, he has no trouble remembering that he is Connor, who he grew up as Steven before given the gift of normalcy through his father’s—his real father’s—desperation.

But sometimes he forgets.

“Well. It’s dead.” Xander slumps despondently onto the sofa. He’s in mourning, has been since he came downstairs that very morning to find the most precious thing they own smoking slightly. His panicked shouts had roused the other two, stumbling and tripping over themselves as they rush to see what’s hurt the part of them that’s the most fragile, naked bodies still weapon enough to defend—

Against a tv that’s died. Connor’s _still_ amazed at how loudly and viciously Spike can yell at Xander for scaring them like that and then, as soon as Xander’s suitably chastened, slip into a dirge without missing a beat. But that’s Spike, who’s not so much one giant mood swing as interconnected facets that overwhelm everything for a few moments, before another facet is pulled to the fore.

It bothers him, a little, that he isn’t joining in the weeping and wailing. He’s a red-blooded American teenager, lost in the wilderness of the African savannah, and tv is his blood.

He ends up in their laps a lot. He’s smallest, physically, and he enjoys being held almost as much as they enjoy holding. Xander wraps his arms around a too-thin—or so he always says—waist, burying his face into Connor’s chest. His breath is warm and wet.

“We’ll get another,” Connor says, stroking coarse black locks. Spike is still tinkering with the tv’s innards, his furious mutters periodically interspersed with an _ow_ or a _buggering fuck_. “Spike, it won’t shock you if it’s not on.”

“If it’s not on, I won’t know when I’ve _fixed_ it,” Spike retorts.

“Don’t bother.” Xander’s voice is muffled, the vibrations making Connor shiver. “We’ll get a new one. Try that demonic fedex Giles told us about last week, the one that doesn’t care that we’re in the middle of no where, with only one road three miles away.”

The heavy depression makes Connor smile. Xander’s not _really_ upset, he knows. Mostly he’s just annoyed, and a little bit melodramatic because it prompts both his lovers to coddle him. Connor likes that, which is strange whenever he talks to his dad—either of his dads. He’s had three, now, and each one is just as distant and oddly distracted as the other. Each has their own set of baggage to deal with.

Only one mother, though.

“I’ll _fix_ it. Stop being a baby and go get me a screw driver.”

Xander hasn’t looked up yet, so when Spike huffs and stretches his neck past the other side of the television, Connor has already twisted around to silently shake his head. No, Xander isn’t moving for a while. They go through cycles, all of them, each one uncertain of their place and their self. Xander’s, oddly, happens the most often. Oddly, because of all of them, his life has been the smoothest and sanest—relatively speaking, of course.

A lot of things in their lives are relative. Connor likes it that way. He’s had too much ‘certainty’ pressed upon him for him to be able to trust it, someone’s sincerity always dipping into that quiet, husky voice of the man who lied to him the most. Connor’s fingers tighten enough that Xander jerks and he forces himself to relax. There is no Holtz here, no beautifully mellow voice to whisper poison into his ear. There’s just Spike, pushing onto his feet to join them on the sofa, and Xander who is clinging to Connor like he’s afraid _Connor_ is going to vanish.

“I’ve been thinking.”

Spike immediately snorts, unable to ignore this cue no matter how often it’s offered. “Notify the Council, there’s an apocalypse coming.”

Xander moves one arm long enough to blindly whap—Spike yelps—before curling it around Connor’s waist again. “Grow up. Anyway. I’ve been thinking about... leaving.”

The silence is thick and heavy, Connor struggling to breathe in the sudden mire. Coming here to Africa was Spike’s decisions, as most of them are, but it’s the best one for all of them. His often-faulty memory can’t explain how he went from Spike’s bedmate, to Xander’s lover, to sharing something between all three, but he knows that it is right. Solid. To remove bits of it now would shatter Connor into the pieces his enemies want him in. Spike is his passion, the part of him that cannot be tamed by training or civilization, the chance to run around and beat up things that deserved it. Xander is his humanity, his humor and patience, for all that Xander has little of it himself, and just as necessary as the aggression Spike stokes.

“Leaving?” His voice breaks on the final syllable, thirteen again and distressed to learn he is moving halfway around the country to a new job his father has. Or no, it’s that Holtz has christened him the Destroyer, abandoning him to the waste for further ‘training’: survive on his own for a month.

“Yeah. Leaving.” Xander’s voice is smokey-rough, the words tickling Connor’s belly. “I’m tired of living in the ass-end of civilization. The girls don’t need me anymore. Mari’s turning into a damned fine Watcher, and Achmed’s more than happy to play butler to the brood of ’em. It’s a good pairing, and they don’t need the one-eyed white man who can’t tie his own shoes without help.”

“Good thing you wear moccasins, then,” is Spike’s reply. He doesn’t look as if the world’s been broken, entire chunks of it ripped away to leave jagged wounds that bleed starlight. Mostly he looks thoughtful. “Got a place in mind?”

“Colorado. Near Denver. Giles doesn’t think Hellmouths can be born, but there’s been a major upswing in mystical blah blah there and he wants to send someone to check it out.”

So he’s already spoken to Giles about this? Connor doesn’t quite trust the sharp, greying man he’s met only one time. The stories only confirm that some wariness is appropriate. But Xander doesn’t do _anything_ major in his life without running it by Giles—except for the three of them. Them, Giles found out about when he called and Connor happened to answer the phone. That’s probably another reason why Connor doesn’t exactly like the man; yelling isn’t a good first impression.

Shifting, Xander presses the left side of his face to Connor’s sternum, looking at Spike. “There’d be shopping galor,” he says with a sideways quirk of a smile that never fails to make Connor melt. It’s truer than any of the broad grins Xander offers to random strangers, closer to Connor’s own sincere smiles. “Suits, too, cause he thinks he has a contact in the Mayor’s office, so I’d have to be professional.”

“And the Council does right when it wants to impress. Might even swing a house, instead of an apartment.” Spike sounds excited, interested, and Connor wants to shout at both of them. “Can’t say the grit around here is all that appealing. Gets in your eye all the time, and it’s us that’re stuck cleaning it out.”

“Only cause you won’t let me!”

“You always botch it, wanker. Anyway ... yeah. Can see why you’d want a change of scenery, is all I mean,” Spike says. His eyes are focused on Xander’s, and the look shared between them is ...

Oh. Connor’s body goes very still as things start to make sense. For all his deep, almost instinctive connection with Spike—they’re terrors when they hunt, smoothly practiced though they never do, a glance as informative as an entire book—it isn’t _him_ Spike thinks about most. Connor’s always known that, and is mostly okay with it. He understands Spike has known Xander for years, and believes that Spike has loved Xander for almost that entire time. The two of them together are magnetic, even when hurling curses strong enough to make the foundations shudder beneath them. Xander doesn’t have the animalistic need to hurt that Connor shares, but their passions match so closely. Spike always, _always_ , looks to Xander first, only then remembering to turn around and see where Connor’s got to.

Spike is making assumptions. But Connor’s certain that his are the correct ones.

Breaking out of Xander’s hold is harder than he expects. It’s not that Xander’s stronger, he isn’t. But it hurts to have to exert the effort, shoving himself away so hard that he stumbles before regaining his balance and hurrying outside.

Night is so cold, in Africa. It’s familiar, Minnesota winters mixing with memories of Quar’toth’s extremes, his palms running over skin that prickles into gooseflesh. He enjoys the feeling, sometimes taking cold showers just to reproduce it. However jumbled his mind becomes, his body is a known entity. It does nothing he doesn’t know about before hand, nothing he cannot predict and account for, and the predictability is reassuring. Comforting.

There are few trees near their home, most cut down over the last fifty years, but one has remained. It’s tall and gnarled and Xander will know the name of it, but Connor always forgets to ask until he’s halfway up the knobby trunk, heading for branches that are broad enough to hold three men’s bodies at once without even shuddering. He’s never suggested they try that, though. This is _his_ place, like the bed is Xander’s, the kitchen Spike’s. This is the place he hides in, because for all the three of them mesh together so perfectly it’s often worrying, they are three men living in close quarters. Things happen. Space is needed. Tears need to be shed. It is necessary to have a space just for him.

The wind howls as it twines its way through the branches, and Connor has never felt so alone before.

He shouldn’t be surprised. Nothing about his life has ever been stable, so why is this any different? He’s a student, no, a Hunter, a child of revenge, of salvation, of love. He has a family, except when he doesn’t, unable to process that his father, who cannot express love to _anything_ , does love him. He is the wandering son, part of everything and nothing, and it should _not_ be a surprise. Things always have an ending. He knows that.

But the shock still guts him.

“You,” a light, amused voice shouts, “are an idiot. And _totally_ your father’s kid.”

Which father is this? And why is Connor’s pain entertainment for the one man, totally human man, Connor’s learned to trust? “Go away,” he replies.

“Nope. Not until you come down from the scary tree that hates me and refuses to let me climb it. And you better be glad I convinced Spike to stay inside. He’s all for beating you bloody to make you see sense. I’m not adverse to it, either.”

Connor wants to scream, hating the jocular tone, the smile he can hear with every word. Xander wants to _leave_ and he excepts Connor to be happy about this? He doesn’t have a hundred years to hide his emotions, the way Spike does, and more, he doesn’t have _Xander_ the way Spike does. Spike is his in, the reason the three of them work. He knows Spike will follow, discreetly at first, until he’s certain Xander will take him back. And Connor ...

A rock whistles through the air, thunking into the bark three inches from his head. “Hey! Idiot! Come _down_ here!”

“Just go!” Connor is mortified to hear the sob in his voice, three years old with a scraped knee—no, five, confused and upset over missing his first kill. “You wanna leave? Just leave.”

A heavy sigh is the only response. Quiet fills air, night insects humming, and something large and powerful roaring in the distance. There are lions in this area, though none have ever come close enough to be a worry. Connor wonders if he goes to them, if _they_ will understand.

A heavy body slips against the tree, Xander’s curses quiet. “You are _totally_ Angel’s brat,” he repeats, voice closer as he works his way up the tree. He slips again, but doesn’t fall. Yet. “Forget about your human dad. He could never have produced someone so stubborn and _broody_.”

Tousled black hair pops up through the leaves, a single eye glaring. “This tree hates me. It’s purposefully trying to make me fall on my ass.”

“Good.”

“Connor.” A shower of leaves heralds Xander’s presence on the branch next to him, but Connor refuses to relax. Or even look up. “What the hell’s crawled up your ass and died?”

“You said you wanted to leave. Do I really need to spell it out?”

“Well, yeah. I thought you were starting to get ancy here, too.”

It’s not a response he expects, and Connor has to close his eyes to prevent them from rising. “What’re you talking about?”

“Um, okay, have you been part of the conversations Spike’s been having every time the two of you come back? About how ever since you took down the one guy you were really after, it’s been little nothings to deal with, and a lot of hassle? Do you _remember_ this?”

Of course he does. Finally taking down the Black Thorn’s African representative—such a democratic word for warlord—had been exhilarating. A battle worthy of Angel’s progeny. Dealing with the repercussions, however, is driving Connor crazy. He’s a warrior, not a politician. Mari’s doing a better job than he and Spike ever could with her gaggle of Slayers to provide enforcement and the Council to provide temperance. She’s more than ready to deal with anything major Africa comes up with, while Connor is increasingly useless. He hates being useless.

“I remember,” he says flatly.

“Okay. So, see, I’ve been burned out of this place for months now. Since that week-long sandstorm. So when you two started bitching, I started looking around.” Xander’s earnest now, adopting that nearly paternal expression that neither Spike nor Connor will admit to loving as much as they do. He leans forward, wobbling precariously, to wrap his fingers around Connor’s wrist. It’s thick, compared to the rest of him, and Xander’s big fingers barely make the full circle. “For a place for us.”

“Yeah, I’m sure you’ll be happy—” The words slip away, Connor’s mouth hanging as he finally stops and _hears_. “Us?”

Xander’s smile is broad, his eye cynical. “Duh.”

Connor blinks. And then again. “I—”

“I know.”

And then they are kissing, the branch swaying gently under their asses, as warm lips and soft gentle tongues grow hard and fast. Connor clings, arms and then legs wrapping around Xander’s body. He knew, Connor realizes as they kiss. That’s why he’d been holding Connor so tightly before, why his distress had been real, though the television had nothing to do with it. Xander had been worried about _him_ , Connor.

He mentally counts in his head and decides yes, it’s about his time to cycle downward, relying on his lovers to bolster him back up.

“So,” Xander says eventually. “Denver? Go play in the snow, see some mountains that have cars crawling over them, instead of actual ants?”

“Watch a baby-hellmouth get born?”

“Eh,” he shrugs, smiling again. “Our lives aren’t normal.”

Good thing, Connor thinks but does not say, because they are kissing again, frantic now as Connor finally believes that all three of them will leave, or go, or anything, still together. He surges forward, forgetting they perch on a branch, but it’s okay. Because Spike is there to catch Xander, who cannot break his fall the way Connor does, and kissing two faces at once is something he’s become very, very good at.


End file.
